State Department halts 'X' passport gender marker applications
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has directed the State Department to freeze applications in the passport pipeline with “X” selected as the gender identifier, according to internal communication reviewed by ABC News.
The move follows President Donald Trump's executive order declaring that the U.S. government would only recognize a person's sex assigned at birth, limit the definition of a "male" or "female" to their reproductive cells and potentially withhold federal funding from programs that acknowledge transgender people or "gender ideology."
The Biden administration introduced an option to select “X” instead of male or female on passport applications in 2022. The rule announced by then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken marked the Transgender Day of Visibility and was designed to accommodate intersex, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming individuals.
Intersex people are those with variations in their sex traits such as genitals, chromosomes, hormones or reproductive organs, and differ from expectations of male and female anatomy.
Passports already issued with “X” gender identifiers will still be considered valid, according to the new policy.
As of Thursday, the online application tool still allows applicants to select “X” for their gender or say they wish to change their gender marker, causing confusion within the department’s passport processing operations.
Applicants who call into the State Department’s National Passport Information Center with questions are being told to wait for new guidance before applying if they can, which the center says will be made available “in the coming days.” Those with questions about existing applications are also being told to wait for the same guidance.
Civil liberties groups have criticized the executive order's limitations on sex and gender identification. Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ advocacy and legal organization, is preparing potential legal action against the executive order so identification documents can "accurately identify" intersex and nonbinary people.
The State Department doesn’t publish data on how many applicants have selected “X” since it was introduced, but UCLA’s Williams Institute estimated at the time that 16,700 people might apply for passports with the “X” identifier each year.
The State Department declined to comment on the matter, saying it “does not comment on leaked internal documents.”
